Tips for a Professional Nursing Resume

Being a nurse is a great opportunity to become a part of a rewarding field in the healthcare industry. Nursing requires set skills and knowledge and having a professional resume created is essential to getting a job. There is a high demand for nurses, and because more and more people are turning to this career, you need to ensure that yours stands out from the crowd in order to get the job. Your resume should highlight your skills as well as your training and educational background. You need to showcase your personality as well as your abilities to work with people. Listed below are a few tips that can help make your resume stand out more.

Summary of Qualifications

In this section, you should showcase your value to the company and this should explain why you should be called for the interview. You should explain what your career goals are and if you have any experience, be sure to state that in this section as well. You can include something like:

"Registered Nurse with 5 years experience working in nursing homes, hospitals, and in a home care setting."

You can go on to say what achievements you have accomplished and if you have been recognized for anything, be sure to state that as well. If you did any community service or internships, be sure to include that as well as this is some type of experience that can be used to help set you apart from other candidates.

Educational Background

Begin with your high school and list dated attended as well as any extra certificates earned. List all training and licensure as well that was earned from colleges or universities. List scholarships awarded and any extracurricular activities that you were a part of. This section should go before the experience section for those who are fresh out of school. The more education you have, the better you are going to look to employers.

Experience

With the experience section, you should list each employer as well as the dates employed, position held, and job duties you were responsible for. You should also show how you went above and beyond during your shift to help others and the staff you worked with. Showcase how you helped improve patient health and the flow of the unit or facility you worked in. If you are patient in stressful times, put that when things got hectic, you managed to remain calm and work to find a solution. Show them that you built a rapport with staff as well as patients and their families.

Nursing is a rewarding career and is all about helping others and being the best you can be. Your nursing resume needs to have professionalism in it as well as excellent skills and ability to work under pressure. You need to show that you can perform the tasks at hand as well as help where it is needed without having to be asked. Showing that you take initiative can be beneficial on your part as well.

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Nursing Resume Template Presenting Yourself Professionally

A nursing resume template is the key to making your resume reflect your proficiency in your career field. There is currently a nationwide shortage of competent nurses. Despite this shortage, your resume still needs to appear professional. You need to stand out, capture the employer's attention. Employers consider quality to be better than quantity so do not assume they'll hire you simply because they're short-handed. Your resume functions as the first introduction between you and a potential employer. It should clearly state your skills, experience, and education matching these to the employer's needs.

Nursing is a field where education, skills, experience, and professionalism meet. Every applicant will have similar training and education so you'll need to find a way to stick out from the crowd. Employers are looking for self-starters, people who can bring ideas to improve the department and have the drive to make them happen. Don't forget when describing your work duties to mention any achievements you earned or special skills you acquired. Include a list of your certificates and specializations; employers will be impressed by your well-rounded skill set. Remember that nurses do not only fill out paperwork and change IVs, they have constant contact with the patients and their families. Respect and empathy are key traits in successful nurses, features that should be stressed in your resume. A nursing resume template can help you emphasize your experience in the field and your value as an employee, by presenting your information in a easy to read, professional format.

Did you serve on any boards or committees in the past? Did you have a grade point average (GPA) of 3.5 or higher? What about volunteering? Be sure to include that kind of information on your resume; extras like that are very appealing to employers.

When you have finished your resume, be sure to look it over from the perspective of the potential employer, tie your skills to their needs. Have a friend or family member scan your resume and see if they can identify key details within twenty seconds. If not, consider arranging information differently or highlighting specifics. Employers or hiring managers need to see at a glance that you're the obvious front-runner for the job! A resume that doesn't have a professional appearance can give the impression you're not a serious applicant.

Today's economic environment has created a drought for many career fields, but many medical careers are still seeing growth in the availability of jobs, nursing is one of them. Set yourself apart and present yourself professionally with a nursing resume template.

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Nursing Cover Letters By Email: Things to Remember

While the Internet is a great tool, allowing us to connect almost instantly with anyone in the world, it does have its drawbacks. For one, it tends to be impersonal - meaning that employers who are hiring feel less of a connection with a potential hire. Secondly, the use of e-mail for some reason has made us much more informal in what should always be formal communication. So, if you are planning on sending a nursing cover letter and resume by e-mail, you will want to follow these key points:

Always Follow Instructions

Just like any job, one that you apply for through e-mail or online will have instructions. Do not deviate from them; consider this your first employment test. Failure to follow instructions now will almost certainly mean that you never get called by a potential hiring nurse manager. So if they want your resume in the e-mail and not as an attachment, do this. If they want it as a text-only file, do this. You get the picture.

Test First

Just in case your e-mail reacts strangely to formatting, it is a good idea to send yourself a test e-mail before you forward it to anyone else. How do you do this? Easy, simply put your e-mail address in the "To" or "Recipient" box and press "Send." Simple. You might also sending your cover letter or nursing resume to a friend, too, to make sure it shows up properly in someone else's email inbox.

Get to the Point, Quick

One of the reasons why nursing employers like receiving job applications by email is that it is quick to hit the "delete" button and be done with those non-perfect candidates. This means they may have an even shorter attention span than normal. So make sure you capture their attention within the first few lines. The subject line is a great way to start off on a good note. Try "Experienced Nurse for Charge Nurse Position" or "Eager Nursing Student Wants to Work for You!" Within the nursing cover letter, don't beat around the bush. Tell the hiring manager what you are applying for, why you want the job, what makes you the perfect candidate, and end on a polite note. That's it.

Provide Next Steps

Too many cover letters start out strong, and then end on a wimpy "please call me" or equivalent. Stand strong! If you are perfect for the job then say what you want - such as "You can reach me at [phone number] so we can discuss this job opportunity further" or even "I will be contacting you next week to talk about the [position] opening in more detail." The more confidence you portray in your cover letter, the more an employer will consider you qualifications. Don't be over-confident, but show your enthusiasm.

A final note - Make sure you proofread before hitting the send button! Spelling errors = "Delete" key in many cases.

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Know Your Audience When Composing Nursing Resume Cover Letters

Maybe you have learned this before, though I'll say it yet again: it's vital that you know your audience. This is true whether or not you are on stage performing or should you be writing a letter to a person you don't know. These suggestions is very true when you are writing a cover letter for a nursing job. The main point of a cover letter is to introduce yourself to somebody who can be interested in hiring you, and to clearly show a few reasons why they ought to "read on" to the rest of your application packet - and bring you in for an interview. Being very specific and straightforward is vital, but nothing is more vital than knowing to whom you're writing. There are two main things you will want to think about when writing a cover letter for a nursing job.

First, establish who will be the first person reading your letter. Some job ads will list the name of the person to whom you should send your application materials. For example, the ad might list "Send resumes and a cover letter to Carrie Jones, Human Resources, 123 Forth St.,..." If you are writing a letter that will first be read by a non-nurse - normally, a human resources associate - you ought to be a little less nursing-centric with your language. I would probably recommend you not include terms like, "I've worked in high acuity ERs, SDUs, and HOTCs for many years." The human resources associate is probably going to understand the ER acronym, but the other ones are going to not add value in your letter. So, know your audience.

Conversely, you should write to things a hiring manager - likely a nurse - would understand. If there is a unique skill that you possess that is rare in your geographic area, then feel free to emphasize that skill. Say, for example, you are skilled at inserting peripherally inserted central lines (PICC). Feel free to highlight not only your proficiency, but your practical knowledge in this area.

The second thing to take into account when "knowing your audience" is that your letter may be read by a variety of people, beyond human resources staff or hiring managers. If you will be interviewed by a group, your cover letter will almost certainly be passed out to the group along with your resume and (these days) your online application. So, be cautious what you claim in your letter, to confirm that everything is accurate and absolutely nothing is inflammatory. I once saw a cover letter which said the job seeker had left a prior job because the administrator was, essentially, a depraved dictator. It turns out the cover letter and resume were distributed to the sister of the manager criticized. Big mistake! So, know your audience!

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Guidelines on Creating Nursing Resumes

A well written nursing resume is the key to success for Nurses in finding work that rewards them appropriately. And yet, I find that many resumes for nurses do not include basic information.

A recent survey of the resumes of 16 Nurses identified a number of issues with these resumes. The concerns were:
? Use of Pre-prepared Templates - Most of the resumes surveyed used a template. This type of structure is commonly in use. The use of such templates makes all candidates' resumes similar. The effect is that all such resumes look similar, fail to convey all skills of a candidate and therefore fail to impress the reader. The reader is left to either read such boring resumes or to discard them.
? Career Goals - All resumes looked at during this survey commenced with a career goal. Some comments in resumes in this area are very common to all resumes. An example is "To expand my knowledge, clinical skills and obtain sound practical experience". Where an experienced candidate is applying for a nursing role which requires the candidate to have the relevant skills, this type of career goal acts against the candidate. Furthermore specifying career objectives is a better alternative. Most organisations are looking for a candidate that wants to work for them and a clear career goal is helpful.
? Skills and Competencies - In most resumes, this is not clearly defined. When one reads a resume, they have to search for the skills a candidate has. No one has the time to read through a full resume to then identify the skills a candidate has relevant to a role.
? Clinical Placements - The survey found that many candidates include Clinical placement but provide very little detail. Details of where the placement was and what the placement covered are not included. This provides limited information. Where candidates have been rotated between areas for example, providing information on rotation provides a greater understanding of skills.
? Previous Experiences - In many cases, previous experiences recorded have several issues. These include:
o Gaps in period of employment - I feel that one must have few gaps and explanation of gaps must be included.
o Name of an organisation without any explanation - Many organisations are named but there is no explanation as to the complexity of the organisation, the number of Hospital beds, and the type of organisation.
o The role of the candidate - This was often not included in the resumes reviewed as a part of this survey.
o List of Duties - All resumes included a list of all duties of a candidate. Key responsibilities had not been clearly defined and none of the resumes included any achievements of the candidate.

The above are but some of the issues identified through a survey of 16 resumes of Nurses who had applied for work. There obviously are a range of other issues.

To briefly guide nurses in the preparation of their resumes, it is important that some of all of these headings are included in their future resumes:

? Career Objectives
? Key Skills and competencies
? Key Strengths
? Educational Qualifications
? Accreditations and Registrations with Professional Bodies
? Work Experience which should include:
- Position Held
- Dates employed
- Name of organisation
- One sentence on the organisation
- Three dot points on key responsibilities.
- Key achievements

Follow this guideline and you will not go wrong in your resume. A resume prepared by a professional is always important as it covers several areas you have not covered to highlight you

Kris Varma is an Expert in creating Resumes. Working in Sydney Australia, his resumes are well researched and written. He has previously written other articles on resumes such as "Common Errors in Resumes". He is highly qualified and competent not just in writing resumes and cover letters but also in providing valuable advise on the current employment climate.

To consult Kris, visit his website, http://www.solvedgroup.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kris_Varma

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